A federal judge partially blocked Elon Musk’s access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems in response to a lawsuit filed by AFGE and allies.
Two DOGE-connected employees are granted “read only” access to the systems. No one else will get access, including Musk himself.
AFGE, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Alliance for Retired Americans on Feb. 3 filed a lawsuit against President Trump’s Department of Treasury for sharing confidential data with DOGE run by Elon Musk. The group is represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group and State Democracy Defenders Fund.
The administration on Feb. 5 said they would limit access to the system, but concerns remain.
“We remain concerned that the records, the personal information of our associations’ members are still compromised,” Nandan Joshi, a Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney. “If there is a compromise, it is impossible to unbreak the egg.”
The Department of Treasury maintains the sensitive personal and financial information of millions of Americans, and federal laws protect such data from improper disclosure and misuse, including by barring disclosure to individuals who lack a lawful and legitimate need for it.
Instead of protecting the private information of Americans as required by law, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took punitive measures against officials who sought to protect that information from improper access and allowed DOGE full access to the data, including Social Security and Medicare payment systems.
By sharing payment information with members of the DOGE team, the Trump administration is breaching the Privacy Act of 1974. Other legal experts also believe the Trump administration has violated cybersecurity-related laws, creating new cyber security risks including accidental shutdowns of vital federal government payment systems.
“The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented,” the lawsuit states. “People who must share information with the federal government should not be forced to share information with Elon Musk or his ‘DOGE.’ And federal law says they do not have to.”
The group demands an immediate end to the systematic and ongoing violation of federal laws that protect the privacy of personal information contained in federal records.
“We are outraged and alarmed that the Trump Administration has allowed so-called DOGE staff to violate the law and access millions of older Americans’ sensitive personal and financial data,” said Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, a grassroots advocacy organization with 4.4 million members nationwide. “Seniors are already the most vulnerable Americans to fraud and scams, with FBI data showing losses of $3.4 billion in 2023 alone. We urge the court to quickly act to stop this unlawful theft of our data.”
“AFGE is proud to join our partners today in standing up for the privacy rights of American citizens – including those we represent working for the federal government,” said AFGE National President Everett Kelley. “It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has allowed unelected billionaires and their lackeys unfettered access to the personal and financial information of Americans. Together, we can stop this violation of American citizens’ privacy.”
“It’s deeply alarming that unelected billionaires have seized control of the private data of millions of Americans, including thousands of SEIU members who perform essential services for the federal government,” said SEIU International President April Verrett. “As a candidate, Donald Trump claimed to stand for the working class, but as president, he is putting billionaires like Elon Musk ahead of working people. He is creating chaos and uncertainty, trying to distract us from his efforts to cut back the care and services we all count on to pay for more tax breaks for billionaires. We’ve beaten back Trump’s attacks on working people before, and we are ready to do it again.”
In a major victory for AFGE, allies, and federal workers, a judge in California ordered the Trump administration to reinstate probationary employees fired at six agencies.
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AFGE and allies last week filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for unlawfully and unilaterally terminating a negotiated union contract, which protects approximately 47,000 Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) across the country.
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Week 8 saw the economy in chaos while Trump and Musk attacked the Education Department, Environmental Protection Agency, Social Security, and Medicare.
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